Gamers are the skaters of programming

It's interesting, because for me, I approach computer games from purely a programming angle, probably because of my generation and gender. I'm coming around now to pay more attention to the "culture" itself and I'm working on a way to work talking about it in the animation classes I teach. Right off, from the beginning, I've always been struck by how tone deaf thought leaders are when it comes even to stuff as basic as creating tutorials about using their products. Expecting schools to incorporate your freeware into their CS curriculum when you prominently feature shooting games in your official tutorial libraries (MIT App Inventor, Microsoft Kodu, Pluralsight)? You all know I'm a huge fan of these platforms, but we've got to do better to guiding young game programmers to think more creatively about how to develop story lines and design. Many think that having more women in the professional game development ranks will help, and I know myself, I'm committed to teaching "giver/gifted/heal" story boards to use in place of the ubiquitous and popular "shoot/kill/score" programming tools. Check out this recent podcast about women in the gaming industry, sparked due to controversy over a game release and resulting gaming community attack. My favorite quote:

"I think it is time for this part of the industry to fully step into [the idea that] we're not fringe anymore. We can, without losing the awesome, kid parts of ourselves, grow up and become leaders in a really cool way".

For examples of women designers and their games, take a look here, here and here.

Be visible

Be outspoken

Be strong

Be smart

Be kind

Be everything that the younger version of us could've pointed to and proudly said:

Girls make games too.

Kim Swift